Immortality was impossible in the real world, but inside the world of this game, it was a basic configuration.
Not to mention the immortal gods, the near thousand-year lifespan of elves was enough to make people envious. In this world, there were magic items that could increase one’s lifespan, but they were extremely hard to acquire.
For example, the world tree would bloom every three hundred years or so. It bloomed without bearing fruit.
It was rumored that other races, for example, humans, or orcs, if they ate the petals of the world tree’s flower, they would be able to increase their lifespan by ten years—eating ten flowers, they would be able to possess roughly the same lifespan as that of the elves.
The world tree was the largest tree in the entire world. Its height was over 600 meters and the diameter of the treetop was roughly 1.3 km. Every time it bloomed, there would be at least ten thousand flowers.
Logically, every time the world tree bloomed, many people would be able to acquire lifespans of a hundred to a thousand years.
However, in reality, the flower of the world tree never circulated beyond the Elf Forest, and the elves wouldn’t pluck any of the world tree’s flowers.
They simply let these flowers fall to the ground and blend in with the mud.
If any outsider attempted to steal flowers from the elves... then they’d be the mortal enemy of all elves.
Because elves were born from the world tree, in their eyes, each flower of the world tree could become their kin. Even if this didn’t turn out to be the case, the flowers were still the remains of their kin—the flowers came from the mother tree, and after they fell to the ground and became mud, they returned to the mother tree, waiting to reincarnate as flowers once more.
There were also meats of powerful monsters or certain limbs of demons that had similar effects when eaten.
For example, the brains and hearts of dragons.
...Or the Crimson Flame Core of fire phoenixes.
Regardless of whether it was the world tree, powerful monsters, or demons, these weren’t things that these nobles could provoke at will. However, if it were Golden Sons... they weren’t that powerful, so perhaps there was room for manipulation?
“It sounds quite interesting.” Bard smiled very happily.
John said, “I personally don’t really believe in these rumors. Besides, eating other humans just feels disgusting. We’re humans, not orcs.”
Bard smiled in agreement.
Then, the two talked about other subjects. John stood on the balcony and told Bard which young ladies below were prettier and easier to get one’s hands on, and which ones were relatively cleaner.
Bard remembered each and every person in his mind, and then he found a reason to go down to the banquet hall.
John continued to stand on the balcony, looking down below on Bard interacting with the upper-class ladies, his smile still gentle and warm as usual.
His smile was like a small sun.
After the banquet was over, Bard, who had been soaked in fragrance, returned to rest in the guest room the host had provided him.
Lying on the bed, Bard laughed lightly.
He could tell that John said so much for no other reason than to make him initiate conflict with the Golden Sons. To initiate conflict with a group of undying people, was he really being taken for a fool?
Of course he wanted to have a taste of the flesh of the Golden Sons. If there truly were effects, he could give his grandparents a taste. However, the problem was: did he have to fight against the Golden Sons to acquire their flesh? Could he buy it with gold?
He felt that he definitely couldn’t buy Roland’s meat. Roland looked too proud, and if he were to approach Roland, he would definitely be humiliated. However, he could try the three other Golden Sons.
Then, he closed his eyes to rest.
It was soon morning again. Because there was no need to sleep, Roland was always working on Language Proficiency.
Now he was one step away from truly completing the double effect of listening and reading.
However, he was stuck here. He discovered that he was lacking some data, and after attempting several times and failing, he couldn’t find the solution. If he were to use the process of elimination, he would have to test till god knows when since there were too many remaining nodes with tens of thousands of combinations.
At this moment, Roland felt that his intelligence and mathematical knowledge was lacking.
He somewhat regretted that he didn’t attend graduate school and take the exam for doctorate studies.
How about... seeking help from the netizens on the forums?
The netizen who pointed out he had a hidden specialty seemed impressive right off the bat. Later on, when he logged out of the game, he would go on the forums and @ him to see if he could get some help with the calculations.
Because Vivian wasn’t at the Magic Tower, Roland could only go out and look for food himself.
When he arrived at the entrance to the Magic Tower, he saw Hawk, Link, and a man in a chainmail suit walk over.
Roland assumed that the man was another warrior at first, but then he discovered that the man actually had obvious mental energy waves emanating from his body.
This was the mark of a spellcaster.
Moreover, this man’s body was quite upright. He appeared only to be 17 years old, but the expression in his eyes was quite mature!
A player?
It couldn’t be helped; the vibe of the players compared to that of the NPCs were too obvious.
Just like the majority of Chinese people, they could easily distinguish between people of the Celestial Empire[1] and people of the Fusang[2].
This person is also from Silver Wings?
Just when Roland was thinking this, he heard Hawk say, “Roland, this is the priest you recruited online. He found us first, so I immediately brought him over to you.”
Priest?
Wait, this is a priest?
The man was in heavy armor from head to toe, carrying an iron-made square shield on his back, with a small iron mace hanging on his waist—the mace was even studded and looked quite lethal.
And the man’s neck and the part of his wrists which were not covered by his armor, were clearly marked with striated muscles.
The muscles in these areas were quite hard to train. If the man could train these muscles to such prominence, then the muscle on other parts of his body was definitely not bad either.
“This man is obviously of a close-combat class, and you tell me he’s a priest?”
Roland found this somewhat inconceivable. In his impression, priests were definitely similar to Falken, wearing a magic robe and holding a staff.
“I’m really a priest,” this man in the chainmail said seriously. “I’m a battle priest, and Master Roland, you can’t bring your previous experiences in other games to this one. I’ve already stayed two months in the Church of Life, and I can tell you confidently that if anything happens in the various large churches, we battle priests are on the frontlines. Close combat, support, and healing, we’re all proficient in. The priests you’re talking about are clerks that know theurgy. Their responsibility is to ensure logistics, spread the faith, as well as appease the believers. They almost never participate in battles. If they did participate in battles, then that would be a time a sect’s survival was in the balance.”
I see... Roland said with a smile, “Sorry about that. I’m inside the Magic Tower deriving spells most of the time and very rarely participate in battles with others, so I don’t understand much regarding these matters.”
“No worries, everyone’s a newbie. There are too many things in this game for us to understand,” the man said with a smile. “You can call me Jett.”
“Jett... have you had breakfast yet?” Roland asked.
Jett shook his head.
Hawk asked with an excited look, “Are you treating us? So rich!”
Roland nodded. “Of course. Let’s go to Gray Sand, the atmosphere is slightly livelier. I’ll notify the party leader as well.”
Jett had a somewhat confused expression. “Roland, aren’t you the party leader?”
“No, a friend in my guild is. Wait, I’m leaving a message for him with the guild system.”
At this moment, Jett’s eyes lit up. “Guild system... the guild F6?”
[1] Ancient name for China
[2] Ancient name for Japan